Jiǔ
by agentcalliope
Summary: the nine steps Roy takes towards acceptance


i.

It's the first time he realizes he's different.

Roy pauses, the pencil still against the paper. Around him, children chatter the way children do when the teacher has left, even if it's just for a minute. Underneath the wooden desk, his legs stop swinging, and he squints to look at the girl standing before him.

"Excuse me?"

"I _said_ ," she huffs, hands on her hips. "Where are you from?"

"I don't understand." He really doesn't.

"You're not Amestrian." The girl quips. "You can't be. Look at your skin, your eyes." She points at him. "So, where are you _from_ , Roy?"

He blinks. Looks at the girl, with her brown hair and blue eyes. Looks at the boy next to him, looks at the children around the classroom. Some have dark hair, like him, but none have his eyes— narrow eyes, dark eyes. None of them have the pale, pasty color of his body.

Roy swallows. Knits his eyebrows, and clenches his jaw. His hand, gripping the pencil tight, begins to tremble ever so slightly. "I _am_ Amestrian, Lucy. Just like you. Why don't you go and bother someone else?"

She takes a step back from him. Her lower lip quivers, and for a moment, he feels guilty. "I was only asking! You didn't have to be rude about it!" Lucy sniffs, and then walks away from him.

Roy tries to go back to his lesson, but the words blur across the page.

When he gets home, he runs past his sister Vanessa, who's waiting by the door for him. He runs past Irene, who's waiting with his afternoon snack, and a piece of cake she always sneaks for him from the kitchen. He runs past his aunt, and up the stairs, and ignores her calling after him as he slips into the bathroom and locks the door behind.

He drags his stool over, steps on top, and peers into the mirror.

"Is everything alright in there?" Madame Christmas knocks on the door, jiggles the handle.

Roy ignores her, and stares at his reflection.

He's never noticed. How has he never noticed?

Somehow, the door opens, and Roy looks at his aunt in the mirror. Looks at her black hair, pale skin. Looks at her eyes, like his, but also _un_ like his.

"Roy Boy? Did something happen at school?"

Roy forces himself to smile, and tell his aunt that nothing happened when something _did_.

He's six, and he's realized for the first time that he's different.

"Auntie?"

"Yes?"

"Where am I from?"

"That's a stupid question. You're from here, my boy."

"But… where am I _from_ , from"

A pause, and then a sigh. "So, something did happen at school."

"Why do I look different than everyone else?"

Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Vanessa and Irene glance at each other. Madame Christmas wipes her mouth with a napkin, and leans back into her seat.

"Your father— my brother—was Amestrian, but your mother was from Xing." Chris says. "You may look different from the rest of those _brats_ from school, but you're an Amestrian citizen. You have the same rights as anyone else in this country, got it? I will not let you be treated unfairly because you do not fit the ideal Amestrian appearance, and I will not let _you_ let yourself be treated that way because your mother happened to be from another country. Do you understand me, Roy boy?"

He clutches his fork in his fist, tries to swallow, and nods.

"I'm sorry." His aunt sips her water, and looks him in the eyes. "I should be telling you more about your mom and dad, about Xing. Do you want to know? About Xing? I'll tell you anything you want to know, kid."

He tells her that he doesn't, and that he doesn't care anymore.

He tells himself that he doesn't, and that he doesn't care anymore.

(but he think he does.)

ii.

It's the first time he's seen anyone that looks like _him_. Roy tugs on Madame Christmas' hand, making her stop. Around them, the crowd parts, the way crowds do when someone stops in the street. He points at the silk merchant from where she's passing a bundle to a man.

"Auntie! Look at that woman!"

She clucks and swats Roy's hand away gently. "Roy! You know it's rude to point."

He knows, but he's too excited to listen and he points again. "But Auntie! She looks like me!"

Again, Madame Christmas bats his hand. "Yes, she does. She's probably from Xing."

"You think so?"

The woman bows goodbye to her customer, and meets his gaze from across the street. She smiles, and he notices the way her eyes crinkle as she does.

His heart hammers in his chest.

"You want to go over there and talk to her?"

The woman waves, and he waves back.

"Yes."

He's eight, and it's the first time he's realized he's not alone.

iii.

He doesn't know how— doesn't know if it's because he's in a mood, or what Master Hawkeye said to him, or even just because the air has a certain smell to it— but he thinks it's going to rain.

He tosses another stone into the lake.

At this point, he isn't even trying to skip them anymore. Instead, Roy lets them plop into the water, and sink to the bottom. He inches closer to the edge, and looks down, his reflection looking back up.

He lets a stone drop. It breaks the surface of the water and breaks his reflection into a million pieces.

If his aunt were here, she would call him a drama queen, and he thinks she would be right.

"You're not doing it right." A voice, soft but firm, pulls him out. "You're supposed to pick a flat stone."

She's sneaky, this one. Sneaky and quiet. Who knew anyone could be this silent? Roy didn't even notice her come up to stand beside him, placing a basket on the ground.

Roy shrugs, feeling the heat of her gaze. "I'm throwing stones." He bends down and chooses one the size of his fist. He chucks it as hard as he can, and it splashes as it makes impact. "I'm not trying to skip them."

"Hmm."

A stone he didn't toss skips across the water six times. He follows it with one that doesn't make a sound when it hits the surface.

He stares down at the water. "Did Master Hawkeye send you?" He still refuses to look at her. He doesn't know why.

"No." She pitches another, though this one only skips four times. "I'm coming from the market. Thought I would stop by the lake on my way home." A pause. "I would say it's a beautiful day, but I think it might rain."

Roy's somewhat relieved that someone else thinks it, too.

"Father does things without thinking," Hawkeye continues before he has figured out what he wants to say. "I'm sure he would not have asked you if he knew you would get upset."

Roy bites his lip. "I overreacted." Another stone disrupts the still, peaceful lake.

"Maybe," she murmurs, and this time, her stone skips eight times, and he's impressed. "But the point is, his question bothered you."

"Yeah."

"So..."

"So what?"

"So, _why?_ "

He finally turns to look at her, and tries to think about anything other than the fact that it seems her eyes seem to look into his soul.

Her brown, almost red eyes.

"Because I don't know anything about Xing, except for the fact that that's the first thing people see about _me_." Roy scoffs, running his fingers through his hair. "I'm tired of answering questions I don't know, I'm tired of people asking them, and I'm _tired_ of being _tired_."

This time, the stone he throws makes an audible sound as it falls in.

For a while, there's just silence. But it's not uncomfortable, Roy thinks. It's the kind of silence that speaks way more than words ever could.

"You're supposed to pick a flat stone." Hawkeye says again.

He turns towards her. ", I know how to skip a stone, Ms. Hawkeye." He searches the ground for a flat stone, and although he had hoped it would skip, he throws it, and it sinks anyway.

She crosses her arms, raises an eyebrow. There's a smile on her face, and he knows he hasn't fooled her at all.

"You have no idea how to skip stones, do you?"

"… No."

And so she teaches him, and when she presses behind him, guiding his arm, his heart skips like the stones across the water.

They both don't notice until too late. Clouds have darken the sky, and there's a rumble, a flash of light. Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye leave quickly, and race through the woods trying to make it back in time before the storm.

They don't, and although he _hates_ it, he finds that with Riza Hawkeye, the rain doesn't bother him at all.

"I think," she whispers from the top of the stairs, dripping wet and grinning, staring down at him. "I think that your eyes are beautiful."

She leaves him, then. He hears as her footsteps fade away, and he remains standing still. He holds his hand to his face. Runs his fingers over the slope of his nose, his brow. The shape of his eyes.

And Roy Mustang smiles.

He's thirteen, and he realizes it's the first time he feels… proud.

iv.

He's eighteen, fresh and young in the academy, when he realizes for the first time it doesn't matter what he says, and he can do whatever the _fuck_ he wants.

"Hey, Mustang! What's that Xingese dish with the bamboo shoots in it? You know, the really spicy one?

"Nǐhǎo."

"Yes!" The boy exclaims, turning back towards his friends. "Nǐhǎo. It's _so_ good, we have to go get some!"

Roy smiles, and pretends not to notice the look Maes Hughes is giving him, peering at him through his glasses.

"Really?" Hughes asks.

He doesn't answer except to take a bite out of his spinach quiche, and shrug.

"Roy."

"What?"

"I think you're full of crap."

Roy pushes the plate away and leans back into his chair.

"No, just quiche."

Maes Hughes grin turns into something more somber. "I really wish people stopped giving you trouble for something you can't control."

"Relax, Hughes. He just asked about a dish- he didn't call me names or anything."

"It's still racist. And people _have_ called you some pretty terrible stuff."

"That's just the way people are. There's always going to be someone looking down from a pedestal they never earned."

"And there's always going to be someone at the bottom, looking up."

v.

Roy's just twenty-one, with dark hair and pale skin and narrow eyes, and he realizes that anyone with white hair and dark skin and red eyes has it worse.

vi.

He thinks it really is the innocents who suffer in war.

He thinks that the guilty _burn_.

Hawkeye's burning right now, whimpering and clutching the sheets in her fists. He lies by her side, and brushes her hair with trembling fingers. He doesn't know what else he could do for her, other than to stay by her side.

She whispers to him, too low to hear. He leans in closer.

"I found the records," she says.

"What records?" he asks.

"The records. My father's records, my mother's records." Hawkeye's mumbling too fast, talking to him without talking to him at all. "The records of my family."

A grunt of pain.

"My great grandmother was Ishvalan. My mother's grandmother."

A moan of despair.

"I've killed _so_ many."

God, she must feel like she's on _fire_.

Roy rests his forehead against her, closes his eyes.

And he burns along with her.

vii.

"How _dare_ you?" She snarls, her anger radiating off of her in waves. He thinks about how rare it is for her to unravel like this, and he can only watch in shock as she jabs her finger into the man's chest. "How dare you question his loyalty to this country? _Fuck_ you."

"Major Mustang!" The man, no—a boy, cries, glancing around Hawkeye to look at Roy. "Help me!"

"He's an Amestrian citizen!" She continues, bristling. "He has every right that you have—"

He's twenty-four, the _Hero_ of _Ishval_ , and he realizes if he doesn't stop her, she's going to kill this boy with her bare hands.

"Officer Hawkeye, that's enough!" Roy pulls her away, pulls her behind him, and directs a painted smile at the trembling boy. "Sorry about that, Officer," He lets his voice drip with charm, not venom. "I think it would be best if we forgot about this, don't you think? Especially since you've just asked a higher ranking official— a _war_ hero— if he's the Xingese spy we've all been searching for."

The boy turns a shade of sickly pale, eyes wide and round. He swallows and nods, quickly bowing before practically running out the door.

Hawkeye tears her arm out of Roy's grasp and, as he turns around, clears her throat, smoothing down her uniform with stiff fingers.

"Forgive me, sir. That was quite unprofessional of me."

Roy pauses. "Officer Hawkeye," he says, slowly piecing it all together. "I don't need you to protect me. You _know_ you don't need to protect me, right?"

The look in her eyes tells him that she's going to, anyway.

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

viii.

He's twenty-nine, blind, and he realizes that seeing isn't everything.

"Edward, I'm sorry to hear about your father."

"Yeah. Thanks." A shaky breath. "He was like, a thousand years old anyway."

Roy presses his lips together and nods, waiting for the boy to continue.

"I'm more worried about Al, actually." Ed admits. "He says he's okay, but I know he's not, not really."

Silence.

"Do you have parents?"

Roy blinks unseeing eyes. "My aunt raised me. My parents died when I was little." He swallows, and admits a truth he's never truly told. "My, uh, my mother was actually from Xing."

" _Really_." Ed's voice is laced with sarcasm, and if Roy could see, he would know where to punch the brat, and he would. But he can't, so he settles for crossing his arms and sighing.

"Yeah, well. I don't have a habit of telling people."

There's a pause. "Really?" Edward sounds surprised, and Ed is almost _never_ surprised. "Why?"

"It's hard loving this country, and being different. I've only wanted to be Amestrian."

"But doesn't that deny what makes you, _you_? Shouldn't you be proud? So, you're not like every schmuck in Amestris. That's not something to hide!"

Ed continues before Roy can respond. "Al and I are now the only ones left with Xerxian blood. There is no one else. But I'm Amestrian, too. You can be both you know. You can be Amestrian, and Xingese. Don't let racist assholestell you what or who you have to be."

"Fullmetal," Roy begins slowly, trying to explain something he's never said aloud, but have always felt. "You look Amestrian— you can _pass_ for being Amestrian. I don't have that luxury. How can I be both when Amestris only sees me as Xingese? How can I have a choice in how people see the color of my skin, my eyes?"

"I've never thought about it that way."

"You've never had to."

There's a sigh. "That's fucked up."

Roy can't help but shrug. This is his truth, after all. What's taken him a lifetime to piece together. "It is. But that's just the way things are."

"So, if you can't change how people view you, change the way you view yourself."

"I don't understand." He really doesn't.

A rush of air blows into him, and the image of Ed waving his hand in front of his blank face comes to mind. "Sorry, Colonel. Just checking to see if Truth really took your eyes, and not your brain. Use it, stupid. There are plenty of people for you to ask about Xing, for you to learn about it. Don't you know that any weakness can be turned into a strength?"

Edwards's right.

Not that Roy would _ever_ tell him.

And when Ed walks out the door, he doesn't hesitate to ask him for a favor.

Roy can tell by the footsteps that it's Hawkeye, and can tell that she isn't alone. A knock on the door, and he tells them to come in.

"Mr. Mustang?" A small voice calls out, and comes closer.

"Mei Chang." Roy sits up in his bed and smiles into the darkness. There's a scraping sound as Hawkeye drags a chair over to his bed. "How are you?"

"I'm alright— sir," the girl adds quickly.

"I would like to thank you again for saving the Lieutenant's life." He blindly reaches out, for _her_ , but he doesn't have to go very far. Calloused but soft fingers intertwine with his.

"Oh, sir, it was nothing, really."

"Well, it was _everything_ to me."

"Yes." Hawkeye interjects, squeezing his hand. "And to me. Thank you."

"I would like to ask you something, before you leave." Roy says before he can convince himself otherwise.

"Sir?"

"Xing. What's it like?"

And later, after Marcoh, Roy stands in front of the mirror and traces his features with his hands, and sees with his eyes.

His eyes.

 _I think,_ a voice from his memory whispers, _I think_ _your eyes are beautiful._

"I've never noticed." He whispers back. "How have I never noticed?"

It's the first time he realizes he's different, and that's okay.

ix.

He's forty-three, Fuhrer of Amestris, and he realizes that to her he'll always be her little boy.

"Ah, so if it isn't Roy Boy, coming to visit me."

"You know I'm just here for the drinks, Madame."

"I see. And you've brought your wife and daughter along with you for a night on the town." "Girls!" She raises her voice. "The Fuhrer's here."

There are shrieks, coming from upstairs, and then thunder as his sisters race down the stairs. He sits on the stool, and lets them all fawn over him. He doesn't complain when they pinch his cheeks and ruffle his hair, and he certainly doesn't complain when they finally turn their attention towards Riza, who laughs, and lets them hold the baby.

"Alright, alright." Chris leaves from behind the counter and lumbers over. She beckons with her hands. "Now give me my favorite little girl."

"You once told me if I had any questions, I could ask you."

She raises an eyebrow. "Oh? About what?" The baby coos, reaches up a tiny hand towards her face.

Roy doesn't waver. "About my parents, my heritage. About me."

Madame Christmas smiles.


End file.
